Impact assessment of krishi bhagya scheme in Karnataka: The policy imperatives

The government of Karnataka launched Krishi Bhagya Scheme (KBS) mainly to improve the livelihood of dry-land farmers. Undeniably, 30 districts in Karnataka implemented KBS along with farm pond, diesel pump set, micro-irrigation units and polyhouse/shade net focussing on agricultural and horticultural farmers. Therefore, Hassan district was selected in order to collect relevant information of KBS and a total of 117 respondents were selected by simple random sampling including, beneficiary (40 agricultural farmers and 21 horticultural farmers) and non- beneficiary (35 agricultural farmers and 21 horticultural farmers) farmers. Logistic regression, ordinary least square and average mean score methods were employed to assess the impact of KBS implementation. The study found that access to KBS is significantly influenced by education level and land size. In addition, education particularly secondary and higher secondary levels significantly affect the income of beneficiaries. The number of visits of extension agency, lack of awareness about the scheme and non-availability of timely subsidy were considered as the major problems faced by beneficiary and non- beneficiary farmers. The performance of KBS scheme can be improved by providing a proper source of information about the scheme and by making land records available online.